RAMDISK Benchmarks

Test system: Nehalem Core i7 950 and 4 GByte RAM Software OS: WIN7 32-bit (max 4Gbyte RAM) Setup: 2 GByte RAMDISKs from different software vendors Hypothesis: RAMDISKs have different performance due to their implementations License: All material, pictures can be freely reused with proper attribution (CC-by) Author: Tobias Kind / FiehnLab 2009 / fiehnlab.ucdavis.edu

Used disk benchmark tools:

CrystalDiskMark HDTach (trial) HDTune (trial) Atto Direct IO Disks crystalmark.info www.simplisoftware.com www.hdtune.com www.guru3d.com - can be mounted as virtual disk and can be used with drive letter - are not seen by Windows Disk Manager or HDTune/HDTach - faster than direct disk mode (SCSI)

Comments:

- Error may be as high as 20%; - Older unsupported tools such as ATTO may have caching issues - Direct IO is faster than direct disk mode - Two test with two repeats, fastest result taken for table - FAT and FAT32 and NTFS results mixed

See a collection of other HD benchmark tools at http://www.benchmarkhq.ru

Ramdisk performance results for Windows 7

Num 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Sequential [MB/s] Random 512k [MB/s] Random 4k [MB/s] Average (ALL) Name Read Write Read Write Read Write Score QSOFT Ramdisk Enterprise 5362 6460 5574 6582 1063 924 4327 VSuite Ramdisk (prof.) 4544 5269 4731 5247 1000 795 3598 Gili Ramdisk 3684 4684 4213 4857 610 541 3098 Virtual Hard Drive 2 Pro 4654 4006 4365 4186 719 623 3092 StarPort iSCSI Initiator 4441 5179 3992 4493 186 188 3080 SuperSpeed RamDisk Plus 4409 4995 3995 4492 199 193 3047 ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver 3923 4500 3176 3556 81 63 2550 Cenatek Ramdisk 3215 3573 2902 3054 225 197 2194 RamPhantom 7 3414 3835 2717 2871 53 57 2158 Gavotte Ramdisk 3314 3531 454 460 4 4 1295 Everstrike DiskBoost NA NA NA NA NA NA NA AR RAM Disk NA NA NA NA NA NA NA StarWind iSCSI 4.0 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Moio Systems RAMDisk NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Cenatek RAMDISK XP NA NA NA NA NA NA NA ERAM for Windows NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Microsoft KDMF/DDK NA NA NA NA NA NA NA
Testsystem : Core i7 @ 3.5GHz; DDR3 RAM; WIN7 32-bit; CrystalDiskmark 2.0; Error +/- 20%

A fast Ramdisk or ramdrive can deliver more than 5 GByte/sec seq. throughput Good support and signed drivers are important; Backup option is important Easy installation and de-installation as well as convenient GUI are a large plus CPU penalty for Ramdisk use is one CPU core - due to RAMDISK and FS overhead Commercial and free versions can be used (performance is not ultimate measure)

Benchmark of HDs vs. RamDisks vs. SSDs

Single HD Seagate 750 GByte HD ST3750528AS

RAID10 (Intel Matrix RAID) WD RE3 750 GByte HD WD7502ABYS

Single RamDisk QSOFT Ramdisk Enterprise

How about consumer SSDs? They can reach several hundred MByte/sec but not more. IOPS for RAMDISKS: 30000-40000 @ 512 bytes and 4 kBytes How about external or PCI-X based SSDs like Fusion IO? The can reach 1000 Mbyte/sec. Cheapest DDR3 4Gbyte ~ 200 Dollars ; a 64 GByte RAMDISK would cost 3200 Dollar (4RAM) A fast SSD or disk RAID array (RAID10 or RAID6) should be used for the production system A small RAMDISK with few GBytes can be used when top performance is needed. Using a RAMDISK has a penalty of one CPU core in use due to filesystem and ramdisk overhead.

Product name: SuperSpeed RamDisk Plus / RamDisk Product version: 10.0.1.0 Source: www.superspeed.com (trial)

Utility: Price:

Easy to use, no installation issues; single program with Backup; WHQ certified no driver signature required RAMDISK plus 64-bit: 99 Dollar

Product name: SuperSpeed RamDisk Plus / RamDisk Product version: 10.0.1.0 Max CPU utilization (8 logic CPUs): 25%

FAT with 32 kByte units

NTFS with 4 kByte units

NTFS with 64 kByte units

FAT32 with 512 Byte units

FAT32 with 4 kByte units

FAT32 with 16 kByte units

SuperSpeed RamDisk Plus with HDTACH READ (QuickBench 8 Mbyte Zones)

FAT - 32 kByte

FAT32 - 32 kByte

NTFS - 4 kByte

NTFS - 32 kByte

SuperSpeed RamDisk Plus HDTune READ block size selection

512 byte in HDTUNE

32 kbyte in HDTUNE

8 Mbyte in HDTUNE

SuperSpeed RamDisk Plus TEST with HDTune block size 64k

Read test FAT32 - 4k

Write test

Read test - FAT 32k

Read test - NTFS - 4k

SuperSpeed RamDisk Plus HDTune IOPS

IOPS Read

IOPS Write

Read/write performance: RAMDISK 28,174 IOPS @ 4K || SSDs have around 10k-20k @ 4k Read/write performance: 2 GByte RAM = 30 Dollars 933 IOPS per dollar @ 4k

Product name: VSuite RamDisk Product version: 4.1 Source: www.romexsoftware.com (trial and free version) CN = SmartSource Shanghai Electronic Technology Co. Ltd

Utility: Price:

Easy to use, no installation issues; single program with Backup/Image file; Self signed certificate; Direct IO and SCSI disk RAMDISK plus 64-bit: 99 Dollar and free version available

VSuite Ramdisk Professional; Direct IO and SCSI Disk

FAT formated (Direct IO)

FAT32 formated (Direct IO)

NTFS formated (Direct IO)

FAT formated (SCSI)

FAT32 formated (SCSI)

NTFS formated (SCSI)

VSuite Ramdisk Professional; SCSI disk

NTFS

NTFS

FAT

FAT

FAT32

FAT32

Product name: Virtual Hard Drive 2 Pro Product version: 2.0 Source: http://www.farstone.com (trial version) CN = Farstone Technology Inc

Utility: Price:

Easy to use, no installation issues; single program with Backup/Image file; Self signed certificate; Requires Reboot; Direct IO (no HDTUNE/HDTACH) 29 Dollars

Product name: Virtual Hard Drive 2 Pro

Direct IO (no HDTUNE/HDTACH)

Product name: Gili Ramdisk Product version: 3.2 Source: http://www.gilisoft.com (trial version) CN = Pepstyle International Limited

Utility: Price:

Easy to use, no installation issues; single program with Backup/Image file; No certificate; Direct IO (no HDTUNE/HDTACH) 25 Dollars

Product name: Gili Ramdisk

Direct IO (no HDTUNE/HDTACH)

NTFS

FAT32

Product name: Cenatek Ramdisk (now Dataram) Product version: V3.5 Source: http://memory.dataram.com (free version) CN = Dataram; self signed

Utility: Price:

Easy to use, no installation issues; single program with Backup/Image file; Self signed certificate; Free version; For larger than 4GByte free registration req.; PopUp to 18004memory.com

Product name: Cenatek Ramdisk (now Dataram)

FAT

FAT

Read IOPS ATTO NTFS

Write IOPS

Product name: AR RAM Disk Product version: Source: http://www.arsoft-online.com

Utility: Price:

Easy to use; does not mount under WIN7 free

Product name: Moio Systems Power RAMDisk Product version: 2009.3.8. Power RAMDisk v2.80 (trial) Source: http://www.moiosystems.com/

Utility: Price:

Not signed, version 2.8 does not mount under WIN7; new version available (not tested) 10 Dollars

Product name: StarWind iSCSI Product version: StarWind 4.0 (trial) Source: www.starwindsoftware.com CN- Rocket Division Software LTD

Utility: Use for net (TCPIP) access Price: free or 395 Dollars (basic) Problem: v4.0 does not mount under WIN7; new v5 available (not tested)

Product name: StarPort iSCSI Initiator Product version: StarPort 3.6.3 (trial) Source: www.starwindsoftware.com

Utility: Price:

Use for net (TCPIP) access, Maximum 1024 Mbyte; NTFS, FAT and FAT32 Free for personal use

Product name: StarPort iSCSI Initiator

Product name: Cenatek RAMDISK XP Product version: Any Source: www.cenatek.com

Utility: Price:

Only runs under WINXP see Dataram (former Cenatek) version for WIN7 Free for personal use (from Dataram, former Cenatek)

Product name: QSOFT Ramdisk Enterprise Product version: 5.3.1.11 (trial) Source: http://members.fortunecity.com/ramdisk CN= Christiaan Ghijselinck

Access via device manager

Utility: Price:

Not easy to install; in WIN7 use hdwwiz ; however no installation issues Self signed certificate; Direct IO (no HDTUNE/HDTACH) 25 Dollars (enterprise)

Product name: QSOFT Ramdisk Enterprise

Product name: ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver Product version: 1.1.4 Source: http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html

Win7 Control Panel

Utility: Price:

Very hard to install and to remove; in WIN7 follow HOWTO (next page) Direct IO (no HDTUNE/HDTACH) Free/open source

Product name: ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver

1) Explorer Run as administrator

2) System Start Imdisk Service

3) Control Panel

4) Install certificate

5) Open cmd as Administrator(!)

6) Enter at command line (thanks to dossi@bootland): imdisk.exe -a -t vm -m R: -o rw,fix,hd -s 1440M -p "/fs:ntfs /q /c /v:RAMDISK /y

Product name: ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver

Comment: To remove ImDisk type (use admin command): imdisk -d -u 0

Product name: ERAM for Windows Product version: 2.20 Source: http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA000363/index.htm CN= Not available

Utility: Price:

No mount under WIN7; requires reboot; Free/open source

Product name: Everstrike DiskBoost for Windows Vista/XP/2003/2000 Product version: 2.0 (trial) Source: http://www.everstrike.com/ramdisk CN= Not available

Utility: Price:

Easy to install, current version not written for WIN7 (no drive actually mounted) 69 Dollar (business)

Product name: Gavotte Ramdisk Product version: 01.01.2008 Source: http://www.chweng.idv.tw/swintro/ramdisk.php

Utility: Price:

Easy to install and to use; no certificate; run as Administrator for install free

Product name: RamPhantom 7 Product version: v7 free Source: http://www.iodata.jp/ CN: IO Data

Utility: Price:

Install ok under WIN7; requires reboot; Free version 256 MB max 27 Dollar (Enterprise)

Product name: Microsoft DDK KMDF Ramdisk Product version: WIN 2000 Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd163312.aspx http://support.microsoft.com/kb/257405

Utility:

Ramdisk.sys sample driver for Windows 2000; No mount under WIN7; in WIN7 use hdwwiz (Hardware Wizard) Free/open source

Price:

RAID of RAMDisks (not recommended on production systems)

Mirrored Disks Windows

Striped Disks Windows

Spanned Disks Windows

Windows Disk Management

Windows Disk management allows striped, spanned, mirrored and RAID5 software disks Example with SuperSpeed driver (volumes visible in WIN7 Disk Manager ) Software RAID system is slower than single drive alone